Dirty
by Tirainy
Summary: Sonic's body was aching all over and he was in a severe need of shower. Oh, how he hated fighting in the rain.


**Dirty**

Sonic's body was aching all over and he was in a severe need of shower. Oh, how he hated fighting in the rain.

 **TAGs:** One shot, Writing Exercise, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Established Relationship, fluff, showering

 ** **Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.****

* * *

It had been pouring for three days in a row now. Therefore, the ground was all muddy and there were a ton of puddles absolutely freaking _everywhere_. Completely unsuitable for running or fighting if you asked Sonic.

Clearly Dr. Eggman also realized that the hero would have trouble fighting in this weather and so the doctor had launched an attack, of course. What Egghead, however, forgot to factor in was that _his robots_ might too encounter a slight problem with all the slipperiness and lack of friction.

Thus it was no surprise that not only Sonic but the robots too found themselves face-planting into the ground multiple times and getting gradually covered with more and more mud as the battle went on.

But, apart from Eggman, Sonic had at least victory to his name for this laughing matter of battle.

Unsurprisingly, Dr. Eggman left sputtering the moment he realized he had lost. Sonic, after making sure all the robots were actually out of commission and not just faking it, started his way back home too.

Somehow he managed to slip only three times. Quite an improvement he would say considering he'd fallen like ten times on his way to fight Eggman.

However, even though he had intimately acquainted himself with the ground significantly fewer times than in the morning, he still felt completely _done_ with everything when he finally arrived home so the moment he stepped into the familiar warmth of his and Shadow's house, he just made his way upstairs to shower. He knew that once he showered he was going to have to mop the muddy trail he was leaving behind, but he didn't preoccupy himself with the thought for now; he would start after he stopped looking like some kind of a swamp monster from a poor-quality B-movie.

Once in the bathroom, Sonic didn't hesitate to kick off his shoes and remove his soiled clothing, piling all into a messy pile by a wall for the time being. The he finally stepped into the shower, drew the shower curtain close behind himself and turned the water on and to hot, so he could heat up his chilled tired body and make this whole process of rinsing out his fur easier.

However, Sonic didn't even have a chance to adjust the water temperature to the one he preferred before his attention was drawn elsewhere; two sharp taps on the wooden door sounded through the tiled room, alerting him he wasn't alone.

His partner's deep voice sounded just a moment later, "Care to explain why exactly we suddenly have a garden in our hallway?"

"Eggman forced me to bring my work home," Sonic joked, trying to hide his surprise; he hadn't even _noticed_ Shadow had come home while he was out. Then again he hadn't even known Shadow would be coming home tonight; it seemed Team Dark had finished their mission early. "Don't worry I'll clean it up, just, ugh, just give me a moment to stop looking like a first-grader's art project." Sonic was doing his best to scrub himself, but the mud refused to cooperate, sticking to his fur as if it was honey. Ugh, he was probably going to have to clean the drain once he was done...

"Having trouble?" Shadow questioned when he heard his angry huffing.

Sonic tried to scrub his arm free of mud. But all he achieved was just moving some of it around. "...A little," he admitted in the end.

"Let me help." Sonic turned around, wanting to argue that he was _perfectly_ capable of cleaning himself but by that point Shadow was already drawing the shower curtain away and stepping into the shower beside him.

Realizing there might be a certain ulterior motive behind the offer and that seeing each other covered in a bit of filth was in no turn-off for either of them, the hero clarified, "Just for the record I'm _exhausted_ , so if you're hoping for any hanky-panky, get that idea out of your head right now."

"Hanky-panky?" Shadow repeated, clearly amused by his word choice.

"My brain is tired. _I_ am tired. _Okay_?" Sonic huffed, making another feeble attempt to clean his arm. It wasn't successful. "I'll be smart tomorrow."

Shadow let out an amused snort but didn't reply to his remark anyhow. "Turn around," the agent ordered instead.

Sonic obliged without protest; it was hard to clean his back by himself normally without honey-like mud being stuck in it, he definitely wasn't going to protest Shadow taking care of it now. Instead the hero focused on cleaning his hands, trying out the soaps they had in the shower to see which would work the best at dislodging all this mess from his fur—and clearly _none_ of it.

However, that wouldn't be much trouble as, judging by the sudden dark brown of the water, Shadow was clearly doing a great job just with hot water and his hands alone. Sonic assumed that it was because the agent actually had some strength left in them apart from him. The skillful hands dug into his back, reaching between the blue quills and short fur underneath to scrub the mud away with an absolute ease, the strong fingers cleaning and massaging his back at the same time.

Sonic did his best to remain standing and not just let his body _melt_ at the sensation. "Man, why can't you do this while I'm not tired as hell?" he groaned, the tired muscles of his body having effectively having been half-turned to jello at this point.

Shadow let out a single amused chuckle. "I can make a repeat tomorrow if you want," the agent offered, hands sliding just a little bit _lower_ into an area definitely _wasn't_ the hero's back, but Sonic didn't protest, just shivering slightly at the suggestive touch, enjoying the familiar spark it shot through his system.

"You just need to ask," Shadow added, pressing a small kiss to the left side of Sonic's neck. It had a hint of desire in it, but Shadow didn't act on it except for that one wandering touch on Sonic's bottom half. Dark hands moved back up, this time to the blue sides, combing through the fur there in manner that was gentle but clearly business-like, showing that Shadow had accepted that cleaning was the only activity that would be performed in this shower tonight.

Sonic felt his own spark of desire to dwindle at the fact, just a hint of disappointment coursing through him, but he didn't dwell on the feeling too much as, after all, he didn't really have energy for _that_ and he had said Shadow as much. But tomorrow— "Please, do— _wake_ me up like that," he requested as he was sure that in the morning, once he slept his exhaustion away he was going to be able to pay the proper _attention_ to Shadow's clever hands' skill—and then, maybe, also display _his_ appreciation for Shadow's tonight help with his own pair of skillful hands...

Shadow smirked against his neck in that very moment, letting out an amused huff as if the agent could hear what he was thinking in this very moment. Then again, they had been together for so long that Shadow could probably already say what kind of thoughts he was having. "As you wish," the agent said only, though his hands squeezed a little bit harder, proving Shadow was as excited about the prospect as he was.

Sonic let a small smile show on his face. Yeah, the morning was going to be a fun one.


End file.
